I need to be able to open a text file that is formatted like so: 1|John|Doe|30|male 2|Jane|Doe|29|female

I need to make sure that when displayed they are in numerical order according to the first column. I also would like to find a good way to page out the listings so that there are say only 5 per page. Thanks

If you need this much control on the sorting of the information in your text file I recommend you move the information to a Database. You can use a local Database with the module DB_File if you do not have access to an SQL server. This will make your life a lot easier. Quick example of using DB_File <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial,Helvetica,sans serif">code:</font><HR>

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict; use DB_File;

my @data; tie @data, 'DB_File', 'file.db', O_CREAT|O_RDWR, 0666, $DB_RECNO or die 'Could not tie file.db: $!'; $data[0] = 'john|doe|30|male'; $data[1] = 'jane|doe|29|female'; untie @data; </pre><HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Now all the data is stored in a database named file.db.To access the info you just tie anouther array to the file. Remember what ever you do to the array will be done to the file. See perldoc DB_File for more info.